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Sunday, May 31, 2015

Mallalli Falls, Somwarpet

When my Sister, nephew and niece came to Bangalore, I planned this trip to Coorg. I had originally planned three days stay in the south of Coorg but my delay in booking accommodation made me look for some other place. I had not explored north of Coorg, so I decided that it would be a good replacement. Somwarpet Taluk, I later found out, had a lot to offer. The place is not as known to tourists as much are the other places in Coorg. On Saturday, the 9th Of May, at around 8:00 AM , we drove away from Bangalore towards Somwarpet via Channarayapatna route. I choose Bangalore-Hassan route over Mysore route as the roads are far better and the drive would be faster. The route from Chanarayapatna to Somwarpet via Shanivarsanthe is very scenic.

We directly went to our homestay - Aloka Residency. Aloka Residency is a nice place. They have clean and spacious rooms. They have about 4 rooms in the first floor and a pent house at the top. We had booked the penthouse. The only drawback of this place is that they order food from a local restaurant. If they could cook in-house it would complete the title - Homestay.

Anyways, the owner was on vacation in Kerala so we were attended by a boy named Chetan. We ordered lunch and had a good meal before we drove to Mallalli falls which is about 25 kms from Somwarpet. You could do both Pushpagiri view point and Mallali falls if you have the time.

Before heading directly to the falls, I took a short deviation at Kalkandur to visit a Jain temple. At Kalkandur, take a right deviation and enter the village. At a small store that sells grocery, I enquired with an old man about the jain temple. He pointed towards the road opposite his shop. We drove till the end of the road and checked at the house. They had no clue of a jain Basadi. So we headed back. The old man at the shop came out and checked if we had found the temple. When I said no, he wished to come along and show us. So we drove to the temple. It was the building very next to the house where we had enquired. It was surprising that they did not know anything about it.

A very peaceful looking Mahavir idol was in the main shrine of this temple. After some time looking around the temple, we headed back to the main road.

The roads to Mallalli falls is in a very bad condition as it approaches the waterfall. So we stopped about 2kms before the actual car park and walked. However, if you want to take risk, you could drive upto the parking. Many did go until there, including an Alto.

At the gate, one needs to pay a nominal fee of Rs 10 per head. A family comes here with their push cart to sell food and tasty buttermilk to tourists. We had some buttermilk. There are about 300 steps that lead you all the way to the waterfall. The descent is very steep and would require about an hour to get down and same or more to climb up. We decided to stay at the view point at about 50 steps downhill.

We relaxed there for awhile and watched the sun go down. The falls had not much water so many had chosen to climb down and play with the not so farocious waterfall. During rainy season it would be risky to go down.

We walked back. The family selling buttermilk had packed their cart but when we expressed our desire to have some more buttermilk, they opened it up for us.

We walked back to the car and drove back to the town. On our way, we stopped at a small road side shop to have tea. The tea was very tasty. The taste of which reminded Akki and me of our Ajji (Grandmother).

A long day had come to an end. We decided to have dinner at a local vegetarian restaurant called - Surabi. There are only two pure Veg options in Somwarpet town center. This and another called Ganesh Darshini. Both are very close to the main circle at Somwarpet town.